Meadville Lady Eagles district softball champs

Sunday

Oct 7, 2012 at 8:08 PMOct 7, 2012 at 8:10 PM

Open state play In Chillicothe Wednesday

LUDLOW ♦ Having let a 6-1 third-inning lead slip away, the Meadville Lady Eagles caught a huge break to get into extra innings, and then scored twice in the top of the ninth Saturday to shade top-seeded Brunswick 10-8 in the championship game of the high school girls’ softball Class 1 District 12 tournament and advance to the state tournament.

MHS got a 1-out triple to left field from Raysha Tate in the ninth at Ludlow Lions Field. She stayed put as a popup became the second out, but Sara Van Dyke’s grounder up the middle was a tiebreaking single. Haley Fitzpatrick and Kasie Boyd followed with hits of their own, Boyd’s plating Van Dyke with a big insurance run. Winning pitcher Tori Baker then set down Brunswick in order again to close it out. The senior righthander retired the last eight batters she faced to give the MHS offense a chance to re-fire.

Having tied the game 8-8 in the bottom of the sixth inning with two runs, Brunswick got a leadoff double in the bottom of the seventh. The next batter hit a sharp shot up the middle headed for center field, according to MHS head coach Darren Smith. However, instead of going for a likely-game-winning single, the batted ball hit the runner coming off second for interference and an outcome-altering first out.

Meadville (17-7) will be the host team for Wednesday’s sectional-round state-tournament game against the Cairo (Northeast Randolph County R-4) Lady Bearcats (19-6), which will be played in Chillicothe at Daryl Danner Memorial Park, beginning at 6 p.m.

Meadville, in its last year in the conference, is the last Carroll-Livingston Activity Association team standing after Norborne, beaten only once previously all year, was shocked by DeKalb (15-13) 4-1 in the District 13 title game at Polo.

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